Drawing Is

A drawing is not expected to be complete or to be the definitive word on any subject. Its charm is its spontaneity, its freedom, its surprise. For many artists drawing is a way of exploring life. Edward Hill, professor of art at the University of Houston, declared, “The object of all drawing is to intensify experience.” Indeed many artists rely on their drawing to shape experience. Ten years ago, Eleanor Dickenson found that her mother, bedridden through long illness, had died. The first thing she did was cry. The second thing she did was take out a sketch pad and draw her mother's lifeless face. “I experience things by drawing them,” she says.

Drawing is a way of seeing. One test of whether you really understand something is whether you can put it into words in such a way as to teach it to someone else. Another test is whether you can draw it. A drawing is a picture of your understanding. Matisse declared that “to draw is to make an idea precise. Drawing is the precision of thought.” As most understandings are flawed, most drawings are flawed. One draws chiefly to advance one’s understanding.

Because it's aims are gradual and cumulative, drawing is a discipline, an organizing and training and honing of the imagination so that one may be ready to work spontaneously whenever called upon. It is a discipline that requires constant exercise.

(Excerpt from pg 22-23 of The Undressed Art: Why We Draw by Peter Steinhart)

Chicken Studies

Reference Practice, Values

Brush Stroke Limited

These were made with a stroke count limit. The first is a self portrait done with 300 strokes (X every 30 count) the Fish was 400.

Texture Studies

Another Pretty Face

Over and Over

Value studies

Foundations

Hope No Longer Defferred

So when I opened this blog it was 2010 I thought I would be doing pottery by now, but that is no longer an intention I'm clinging to. I don't even hurt when I consider I may never seriously work in clay. Instead a new opportunity has been blossoming- the chance to develop my visual arts skills, particularly in the medium of Digital Painting, but possibly some other traditional media here and there too.

When I made the first post on this blog, I wanted to create a habit of drawing everyday. I did draw now and then, failing to document most of it. But what I wanted was exactly what I needed. What I didn't know then was how much work I had ahead of me to make room in my life for a daily art habit. I learned to better manage my home and I stripped away a lot of clutter in my work space and other hobbies absorbing my time and a lot of little things that distracted me. Although I spent a lot of time on blogs and podcasts about minimalism and home management and habit making/ goal setting, I don't think I could describe the exact transition. It was a shift of mind that allowed me to change my decision making.

A shift that was 7 years in the making, it seems.

As of today I have been daily drawing without fail for over 7 weeks! I want to show some of those images here and continue to update this blog as I take a year of a real journey in my art practice, this time not as some kind of fall back plan to a frustrated hope of making pottery, but as my primary skill interest.

I can do anything, but I can't do everything.

A Self Challenge

As I look ahead to the possibility of running a little ceramics endeavor from home starting sometime next year, once I've managed to clean out and establish the space and supplies for it, I've been thinking about what I've discovered in art practice in the time I've been away from clay. What I've found is a stronger interest in mark making, or visual arts in general, as well as a continued interest in and practice of hobby arts. I believe this dabbling could be much more and I think it is likely going to serve my clay making very well (even if the how is yet vague) so I want to make a more concerted effort in the year between now and then to discipline myself towards a more regular practice as a maker. Not only will the visual arts and various readily available hobbyist media give me something more to bring to my art in a materials and content sense, but the effort itself will also help me to pre-establish a regular working rhythm instead of one of availability and muse, which often leads to dry spells and ultimately non-practice and failure to produce or develop.

As such, this personal 365 challenge will not necessarily be one striving for my best work, or one calling for critique, but, like an out of shape gym attendee, it should be a regular effort intended to become a habit, which may not look pretty to begin with, but one which we know can only lead to great results as the perspiration melts away the ugly.

Starting this weekend I will begin sketching and/ or making for this project. Although I will be creating daily, I may be updating sporadically with sets of images, instead of daily with individual additions. The medium used for this project may vary from work to work. A lot.

n<3